interdisciplinary

Writing is in motion as never before: students text one another on the go and around the clock; colleagues and friends use wikis to brainstorm and to co-author important documents; choreographers and filmmakers use motion-capture technology to "write down" movement and gesture; and poets invent new multimedia poetic forms. The places we write, and the features of the writing we value, are today more varied – and often more contested – than ever before.

We welcome proposals in a variety of formats that interpret the conference themes from multiple perspectives. Regardless of format (see Session Types below), each proposal should provide the following:

POLITICS, PERFORMANCE AND POPULAR CULTURE IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY BRITAIN

7-9 JULY 2011

To be held at the Storey Institute, Lancaster.

This is advanced notice of the second conference held under the auspices of our AHRC-sponsored project 'Cultural History of English Pantomime, 1837-1902'.

We welcome proposals for 30 minute papers which explore the connections between politics and popular culture, 1820-1910. In particular, we are interested in examining the extent to which popular theatre can reveal public perceptions of contemporary social and political issues. And conversely, how might popular entertainment influence and shape contemporary political debate?

We are living in increasingly insecure times. In the face of drastic climate change, global economic uncertainty and imperialist wars with no clear battlefield or determined timeline, a good many social scientists have concluded that insecurity, broadly defined and in its many forms, is the new norm. For the next issue, Alternate Routes invites submissions on the various ways in which (in)security has manifested in the new millennium. How has state repression been employed and under what pretexts? What lessons may be drawn from policing dissent? How does ecological degradation threaten our -- food, labour, biospheric, geopolitical and physical -- security? In what ways are

Watermark, an annual scholarly journal published by graduate students in the Department of English at California State University, Long Beach, is now seeking papers for our fifth volume to be published in May 2011. Watermark is dedicated to publishing original critical and theoretical papers concerned with literature of all genres and periods, as well as papers representing current issues in the fields of rhetoric and composition. As this journal is intended to provide a forum for emerging voices, only student work will be considered.

The Popular Culture Association and American Culture Associations are holding a series of panels at the next annual meeting of these groups to be held 20-23, 2011 in San Antonio, Texas at the beautiful San Antonio Marriott Rivercenter and Riverwalk Hotels.

Papers and presentations are requested on motorcycling and its impact on societies and cultures. Suggested topics include:

Co-editors Rebecca Harrison and Emily Hipchen are soliciting paper abstracts for a scholarly collection of essays treating Julia Alvarez's work. Writers may address adaptations/translation, her young adult and children's literature, novels, poetry, autobiography, nonfiction, or any other of her productions.

Abstracts should be 750 words and may consider any topic, including the following:

The eighteenth-century was a period of great enthusiasm for experimentation and implementation. In government, in economics, in all the sciences as they came to be established, in publication, in all the arts, in short, all were keen on implementing what were largely theoretical (and quite often utopian) notions. When we return to Saint Simons Island, Georgia, in February our theme will be Dreaming and Becoming, and (among other things, of course) we will consider the slippage, sometimes fortunate and other times not, between what was thought to be coming and what came to be.

Participants are being sought for paper sessions or discussion panels on The Funny (and Unfunny) in Fandom for the 32nd annual International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts.

The focus of ICFA 32 is on the humorous and ridiculous in the fantastic, and while papers relating to this theme are welcome, proposals on any topics related to this call will be equally welcome. The conference will be held in Orlando, Florida, from March 16 - 20, 2011 at the Orlando Marriott Airport Hotel. Guests of Honor are Connie Willis and Terry Bisson, and the Guest Scholar is Andrea Hairston. For more information and updates about the conference, please visit www.iafa.org.

Participants are being sought for paper sessions or discussion panels on Literary/Historical Mash-ups and Remixes in the Fantastic for the 32nd annual International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts.

The focus of ICFA 32 is on the humorous and ridiculous in the fantastic, and while papers relating to this theme are welcome, proposals on any topics related to this call will be equally welcome. The conference will be held in Orlando, Florida, from March 16 - 20, 2011 at the Orlando Marriott Airport Hotel. Guests of Honor are Connie Willis and Terry Bisson, and the Guest Scholar is Andrea Hairston. For more information and updates about the conference, please visit www.iafa.org.